I NEVER have been made to feel that way as a woman.....I know it's out there but I have also seen the women who end up demeaned have walked into it without the training or maybe even the desire to be equal.

I was an only child who grew up in a neighborhood of mostly guys.....so the kids I played with were mostly guys & to be quite honest.....the playing that girls did was just plain BORING....dolls & house....they had no concept of anything other than that......while I was outside playing cowboys, street baseball & football. I was always their equal if not better in school with grades....& we always seemed to compete on equal footing & I was always treated as one of the guys. The girls I found that weren't treated with respect were usually ones who they couldn't relate to or couldn't relate to them.

I was one of the only ones in my family to get a degree & it ended up taking me into a computer design firmware engineering career where I was basically the only woman & I was accepted & treated as one of them continuously throughout my 15 year career. I did fight my H when he would say things or do things I felt put me down.....but I had my life plans & had stated them & told him that NOTHING was going to get in my way.....& it didn't....yes, we had our fights. My family willingly supported me even though his didn't think a wife should have a career.....but basically I just blew them off & went on to do what I knew was right for me & it had NO effect on the direction of my life.

I had a manager once tell me I should wear dresses at my review.....I didn't make any comments & I didn't listen to him either....just blew him off & continued to work & function successfully without making a scene about what he said as making a scene out of would have attracted attention & I would have caused trouble which I didn't need to do as the same thing was solved by just blowing him off.....PICK YOUR BATTLES....ONES THAT REALLY are needed to make a difference.

Had another contractor who tried to hit on me....again.....I hold onto my values......married & I don't have relationships outside of marriage.....it's my values that also kept myself from getting into demeaning situations. They can hit you, but if you don't play into them & deflect them.....they don't get to the point of harm.

All the guys I worked with respected me for who I was & what I was & I was their equal.......even to the point of playing really wonderfully hard games of racquettball with them at lunch....& when I beat them......they were just as kind as when they won.......& I ended up in first place in a lot of the men's racquettball tournaments.

I think we earn our place of respect vs our place of being demeaned.

Sadly, I think for a long time women were raised to believe that all they were good for was being a sexual partner for a man & created no other values in their lives....right there to me was a very demeaning role that I refused to ever get trapped into....but that's just theory on my part & probably has a lot of holes in it.